by Sandra Kitt
“Too bad,” she said with winning charm.
Patrick smiled at her. “I don’t imagine you’ll be disappointed for very long.”
“That’s very sweet of you to say so, but…you’re probably the most interesting man here.”
“How would you know that?” he asked, pretty much guessing the answer.
“They’re all business types. Serious, and a little nervous around me.”
“Also, too bad. Is it okay for me to say they don’t know what they’re missing?”
She narrowed her gaze, clearly surprised. “You’re different.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” His phone began to vibrate. He held it up and pointed to it so the young woman could see. “My lady.” He grinned.
The woman shrugged and gave Patrick a genuinely sweet smile as she turned away. “Lucky lady,” she said.
“Jean? Is everything okay? Where are you?”
“Patrick, I’m so sorry. I didn’t expect this to happen.”
He could just hear a rumble of activity in the background. “I take it you got caught up in one of those infamous eleventh-hour meetings.”
“Worse. I might have been able to excuse myself halfway through a meeting, but the mayor informed the staff that he was hosting a reception at Gracie Manson this evening for some dignitaries who arrived this afternoon and expressed interest in meeting with him. The mayor decided on a little social get-together. I had to work with his staff to make it happen. Very last minute. Very crazed. Even Brad couldn’t get out of this one.”
“What does this mean for tonight? How late do you think you’ll get here?”
“It’s winding down here, but I can’t leave for at least another hour. Probably longer.”
“So the probability is very high that we won’t see each other later.”
“Probably not. I was looking forward to tonight. I hope you know that. I hope you understand.”
“Yeah, I do,” he sighed.
“It’s been pretty hectic. No point in going into details. Getting together would have been rushed as well. Watching the time right up until we both have to leave in the morning.”
Patrick nodded to himself. Definitely too much like a quickie. “You’re right. That wouldn’t have been much fun.”
“Or very comfortable.”
“Probably not. I was hoping for a long evening and night, and an early morning with you. It is what it is. I better let you go. You’re still working.”
“I can’t say enough how—”
“You don’t have to, Jean. These things happen and it’s no one’s fault. I’m going to miss you,” he whispered, his voice gravelly and sincere.
“Me too.”
“Make sure they send you home in a car.”
“They will.”
“Send me a text so I know you arrived. I’ll listen for the alert tone.”
“Okay.”
“Night, love.”
Patrick hung up.
Jean gasped softly on his last words. She closed her eyes, resting her chin on her smartphone, letting them sink in.
* * *
The elevator stopped and the doors opened without a sound. The three men in the cab with Patrick waited until he’d exited first. His steps were slow, deliberate, almost like a death march, until they all four stood in an elegant, modern reception area. But there was no desk and no receptionist. As a matter of fact, for all intents and purposes, the floor seemed empty of life. Almost immediately, a young man appeared from an adjacent corridor holding out his hand.
“Hello, Mr. Bennett. My name is Randall Marsh. I’m Attorney Greenbaum’s associate.” Patrick shook the hand and silently nodded. “This way, please.”
The young man, slender, professional, his posture erect and stiff with his own importance, began a litany of information for the four men following him. Patrick had already been told of the arrangements. He had already been briefed on what to expect. What he could, and could not, do when he entered the meeting room and the doors were closed behind him. He really didn’t hear a word the associate was reciting or the response of any of the men behind him. He felt like he was the leader of the charge and they merely had his back. But his throat was dry, and his heart felt like it was trying to find a way of jumping through his chest wall.
He was scared.
Following Randall, the group turned a corner, into another reception area, smaller and more intimate. There was a couple seated together, holding hands. The audible inhalation of the female grabbed Patrick’s attention, and he glanced in their direction, his gaze connecting with, first, the burly man clearly uncomfortable in his special occasion suit, and then with the woman next to him. Her eyes were wide, lashes fluttering in distress. She burst into tears and bent her face away, openly sobbing.
The level of her emotions was not surprising to Patrick. He thought of his mother’s reaction when he told her of the recent revelations. She’d cried as well. Not with fear or guilt, however, as he was witnessing with the older couple, but with joy.
Patrick had only a moment to register his ex-wife’s parents before being ushered into the well-appointed conference room. The small room seemed overly filled with more men. But at the table, a young, stylish woman dressed in crisp summer linen sat staring straight ahead. She didn’t acknowledge his entrance, his existence actually, or any of the formal introductions. Patrick, as well, made no notice of anyone else in the room. Let the lawyers deal with the introductions. As he silently stared at Katherine Carmichael, his ex-wife, whom he had not laid eyes on in years, he felt heat rising swiftly through his body, blood pounding at his temples, until he began to sweat.
“Will everyone please have a seat? There’s a lot of material to be covered and…”
No one realized that Patrick was rounding the oval table not to find a seat, but to place himself directly opposite Katie in a position of absolute confrontation.
Someone called his name, trying to get his attention. Someone was rushing around the table to his side, reaching for his arm. Two men rushed to flank Katie, as if to protect her. She never moved, but her eyes finally lifted to stare at him. He was genuinely shocked to see the level of anger and indignation reflected back at him. It infuriated him.
Patrick, without warning, abruptly bent forward across the table to brace his palms on the table right in front of her. She was momentarily startled but sat defiant, staring him down.
“Why?” he uttered, unable to keep the wounded feelings and bewilderment from his words. “Why?”
“He’s my son,” she responded coldly.
“He’s my son too. There’s nothing you can do to change that. Believe this, Katie. I’m not giving up my right to my son,” Patrick got out through clenched teeth before he finally allowed himself to be coaxed into sitting. He would not shift from sitting directly opposite his ex, and so two of his attorneys each took a chair on either side of him.
“Don’t worry,” Patrick ground out. “I’m not going to go for her throat.” He sat down amid so much tension and hostility between him and Katie that the nervousness of the legal teams was palpable as they struggled for some decorum and control.
Patrick let the lawyers talk over and around him. They were efficient and all on the same page as to the facts. They had legal DNA test results. They had the birth certificate and testimony from the ob-gyn who was Katie’s doctor from the confirmation of her pregnancy to the birth of Nicholas Carmichael. That was the one moment where Patrick knew he might have lost all dignity and cried at the pain, the blind thoughtlessness, of what Katie had done. They had the legal separation papers and the final divorce decree. They had the dates, the places, as well as the evidence that they’d both violated the separation agreement just weeks before it would have ended and the divorce became an automatic conclusion.
“So it’s our understanding, f
or the record, that Katherine Carmichael made no attempt to contact the biological father of the child, Nicholas Carmichael, to inform him of his status in this child’s life?”
“Correct,” one of Katie’s attorneys said, his tone a giveaway to his belief that she’d handled the situation poorly.
“Any particular reason?”
The room went dead silent. Katie had the floor, and the opportunity to justify what everyone already knew she had no justification for.
“Patrick and I were divorced—”
“That decision had not officially come through yet,” Patrick countered immediately. His lawyer touched his arm.
“You do understand that there is no question that Patrick is the father?”
“I didn’t know that at the time,” Katie said defensively. “I saw no reason to inform him of anything. We were done, as far as I was concerned.”
“What you did was unbelievable!” Patrick raged.
“I wanted nothing more to do with you.”
“Are you going to tell me what I did to deserve what you did? Because I don’t think there’s anything you can say that puts you in a good light.”
“She is the mother of your child,” one of the lawyers said sternly.
“You ruined my life!” Katie jumped up, shouting back.
“Okay, everyone calm down. Yelling isn’t going to get us through this. And it’s not going to change the facts.”
Patrick stared at Katie, confused. “How did I ruin your life?”
“You did nothing to help when I was in trials, trying for a spot on the U.S. team.”
“I had nothing to do with that. As a matter of fact, that was the year I was down in Florida after being signed. I was in training myself. There was nothing I could have done to help you. Nothing I should have done. That’s what you had a trainer and coach for. That’s what your dad said he’d do for you. He gave you the moon and the stars. All you had to do was show up and do the work!”
“You should have been there to help me.”
Patrick’s mouth dropped open. He bounded up, pushing his chair back before anyone could stop him. “Are you kidding me? Was I supposed to hold your hand? Run the track for you? Why was it my responsibility to make sure you qualified? Katie, your dad may have thought the sun rose and set with you, but you were in a competitive playing field. You don’t get things handed to you. And none of that has anything to do with you not telling me I had a son.”
“He doesn’t know who you are. He has me.”
“Well, that’s going to change. Don’t think I’m not going to fight you for the right to be a father to Nicholas. And don’t think I won’t sue to have his true last name put on his birth certificate.”
“It’s not going to happen!”
“It if takes the last penny I have. And I have a lot of pennies.”
“Mr. Bennett. Ms. Carmichael. Please calm down!”
“Do you really think you can keep me a secret, or away from him, for the rest of his life? How do you think he’s going to feel when it turns out you lied to him about me? That you denied him the chance to have a relationship with his father just because you were mad at me?”
“I’d make him understand what you did to me.”
Patrick blinked at Katie and felt his anger and bitterness begin to dissipate. It was replaced with a profound pity for Katie. He realized that she was never going to be the kind of person who learned from mistakes and admitted when she was wrong or knew how to say she was sorry. And remembering how her parents appeared in the reception area, worried, concerned, and fully aware of what their daughter was capable of, Patrick was beginning also to feel more for them. They were not the problem. Their daughter was a profoundly unhappy woman who was comfortable holding others to blame for her own shortcomings. He had no intention of aiding and abetting her. And he had every intention of holding her culpable for the injustice she’d done to him and to their son.
* * *
Jean had been looking forward to the rendezvous in the luxury of a hotel suite with all the trappings…including room service! It would have been a fantasy meetup, and all they had to do was be together and enjoy themselves.
Even up to the time she’d actually been able to leave the mayor’s reception, Jean considered taking a car down to Midtown to meet with Patrick. But it was nearly midnight, and even she had to accept the lost opportunity. And she was exhausted. It wasn’t the end of the world, but she truly missed what the night might have been for them.
She knew that Patrick was going to be in Philadelphia the next day. And he’d called her from the airport in Philly and admitted that he was meeting with lawyers but didn’t say why. He sounded distracted, like the call was an afterthought. What was going on?
Jean’s heart sank. She found herself in a state of growing anxiety. She didn’t really know where he was. Had he returned to the city? Was he in trouble again? Why was he meeting with lawyers in Philly?
They were off track. Disconnected. In separate universes. How could they do a flyby and catch up with one another? Or was it getting to be too late? Billy Joel had said it best: “‘When you love someone, you’re always insecure.’”
And that was the long and short of it, Jean decided. She was in love with Patrick, but their relationship was still unclear to her. She was at work and had to finally accept that it was a lost day. She couldn’t concentrate. Had Patrick been so disappointed by their broken plans that he had established a cooling-off period for himself?
“Jean, can you come to the break room?”
Jean sighed and brushed her hair from her neck, briefly massaging the nape. She hadn’t been sleeping well.
“What’s in the break room? Please don’t tell me a box of Dunkin’ Donuts. I’m already on sugar overload from this morning’s breakfast meeting.”
“Nothing like that. Our intern just got engaged, and she’s leaving at the end of the week for a full-time position at Hunter College. We got a bottle of champagne for a double celebration.”
Jean went, relieved that the room was quite busy and filled with coworkers. She was able to join in the many good wishes, fond recollections, and anecdotes with reasonable cheerfulness before quietly withdrawing to the sidelines to watch. She was distracted, concerned about her own anxious state and what seemed to be her faltering relationship with Patrick.
Did it have anything to do with that stupid fake car accident or the ensuing lawsuit? Or the horrible attempt by a former college girlfriend who came forward with an accusation of sexual harassment? Or the Black soccer player who said Patrick discriminated against him by excluding him from a team interview, implying he wasn’t a team player?
Or was it her? What had she done?
Jean navigated her way through the gathering and wished the young woman a last very happy, before putting down her unfinished champagne and returning to her office. It was a sad commentary on her life at the moment that her only plan for the evening was to order takeout and ensconce herself on her love seat with the Roku remote and her Netflix queue. Get through the night. Start over in the morning. Work. Repeat.
Jean screwed up the courage to try once more to reach out to Patrick. She sent a simply worded text.
Are you all right?
She gathered her tote, said good night to security as she pushed through the exit turnstile, and walked out the colonnade entrance. Jean looked up from putting away her security ID. Patrick was standing directly in front of her. His expression and features were hidden behind very dark sunglasses. His mouth was an unforgiving hard line. He was casually dressed in black slacks, a white camp shirt, and suede Adidas.
They stood silently facing off across a gulf of only eight feet, but Jean’s sense of something being terribly wrong was only reinforced by Patrick’s seeming lack of response to seeing her. She didn’t want to be the first to speak. She didn’t know what
to say.
Patrick held up his smartphone for her to see.
“I just responded to your text. The answer is no.”
“Want to tell me what’s going on?” Jean finally got out. She hated that she sounded so plaintive.
Slowly, he closed the distance and seemed to glare down at her behind his imposing shades.
“We need to talk.” Patrick nodded.
His tone was serious. Somber. That surprised Jean. She was resigned to the worse. But then Patrick reached for her hand, closing it in his firmly. Jean held on tightly. She took it as a sign. But was it going to be a good one?
“Where can we go?”
Jean blinked, glancing around.
“Let’s go to Filmore’s. You’ve been there before. It’ll be quiet now.”
Filmore’s had been the venue for his lottery win after-party. Patrick opted to sit inside and had the waiter seat them near the window, but in a corner that guaranteed more privacy.
He removed his sunglasses, and Jean stared at his expression. He didn’t look angry at all, but bone-weary tired. Done in. And agitated. Spontaneously she reached across the table and grabbed his hand.
“Patrick?” she quietly asked, trying to prompt him.
“What can I get for you?”
The sudden appearance of the waiter startled Jean. She swallowed the urge to shout at him to go away.
“Iced tea, please.”
“The same,” Patrick murmured, focusing on her as the waiter left.
She now noticed that his eyes were slightly bloodshot. He wasn’t getting any more sleep than she was.
Jean sighed and spoke up. “You have something you want to say to me, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do.”
“I realize that things have gotten difficult, Patrick.”
“They have gotten impossible,” he blurted out with the first signs of anger. “Ridiculous.”
She withdrew her hand. “Has something…happened?”
“That hasn’t already happened? Yeah, it has. But I can’t say if it’s terrible. Depends. I…I don’t know,” Patrick murmured combing a hand through his hair. “Every time I think I’ve got this, I’m on it, the carpet gets pulled out from under me.” He cupped his hands together and rested his mouth and chin against them. He glared at her over the top, his gaze distant and troubled.
